The Arakanese kingdom (Rakhine state in modern Myanmar) grew from the fifteenth century AD from a small agrarian state with its nucleus in the hart of the Kaladan valley to a significant local... Show moreThe Arakanese kingdom (Rakhine state in modern Myanmar) grew from the fifteenth century AD from a small agrarian state with its nucleus in the hart of the Kaladan valley to a significant local power by the early seventeenth century. Arakan asserted its influence across the northern shores of the Bay of Bengal. In the first decades of the seventeenth century the Arakanese kings of Mrauk U received tribute from local rulers between Dhaka and Pegu, cities more than a thousand miles apart. The Mughal rulers of Bengal were even forced to build a string of forts to defend the areas around Dhaka and Hugli against Arakanese incursions. From the middle of the seventeenth century the Arakanese state was gripped by a seemingly sudden decline that would culminate in civil war at the end of the seventeenth century and the loss of control over south-eastern Bengal, followed by the conquest of Arakan by the Burmese in the eighteenth century. The rapid rise and decline of the Arakanese state between the early fifteenth and the end of the seventeenth century is the subject of this dissertation. Show less
=========ABSTRACT=========It is tempting to think of precolonial India as a harmonious society, but was it? This study brings evidence from new and unexpected sources to take position in the... Show more=========ABSTRACT=========It is tempting to think of precolonial India as a harmonious society, but was it? This study brings evidence from new and unexpected sources to take position in the sensitive debate over that question. From the investigation of six conflicts in the Deccan region it draws conclusions about group behaviour that put modern clashes in context. Some of the conflicts under investigation appear odd today but were very real to the involved, as the antagonism between Left and Right Hand castes was for about a thousand years. Other conflicts continue to the present day: the seventeenth century saw lasting changes in the relationship between Hindus and Muslims as well as the rise of patriotism and early nationalism in both India and Europe. This book carefully brings to life the famous and obscure people who made the era, from the Dutch painter Heda to queen Khadija and from maharaja Shivaji to the English rebel Keigwin=========NOTES=========First Leiden University Press edition, 2009. Entirely revised from the author’s dissertation Xenophobia and Consciousness in Seventeenth-Century India: Six Cases from the Deccan, 12-Mar-2008. Show less
This dissertation revolves around a long struggle of Malukan and Papuan rebels led by Prince Nuku of Tidore against the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) and its... Show moreThis dissertation revolves around a long struggle of Malukan and Papuan rebels led by Prince Nuku of Tidore against the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) and its indigenous allies c.a. 1780-1810. Assisted by the English, his Malukan-Papuan troops managed to conquer the Dutch-protected Sultanates of Bacan and Tidore in 1797 and the Dutch fort on Ternate in 1801. Widjojo elaborates the dynamics of alliance-making, the interests involved, and the actors (grandees of Tidorans, East Seramese traders, Papuans of Raja Ampat, and the fighters of Gamrange). This dissertation also shows intensity of the English involvement in the rebellion which was not discussed before in previous studies. Among others, the dissertation concludes that the success of the rebellion was not driven by prominent Malukan ideological constructs supposedly shared among Nuku and his adherents. The success was mainly because Nuku to a maximum extent successfully combined the strength of Papuan and Gamrange raiders as his warriors and East Seramese traders as the sources of the logistics for his campaign. Moreover Nuku also managed to keep attached to the English and exploit the presence of its country traders. Show less
Focussing on individuals and institutions, the economic and social condition of the people of Fort Cochin between 1781 and 1830 has been studied. This study of the Dutch East India Company's (VOC)... Show moreFocussing on individuals and institutions, the economic and social condition of the people of Fort Cochin between 1781 and 1830 has been studied. This study of the Dutch East India Company's (VOC) establishment on the south west coast of India provides a detailed research into the functioning of the company and its personnel there. To begin the company's presence on the coast around the year 1750, after it had been defeated by the raja of Travancore, on whom it was dependant for purchasing pepper, is summarized. It places the VOC's Malabar Command on the larger web of the VOC network in Asia. The VOC strove hard to maintain its pepper monopoly on the coast, but non-VOC trade in pepper contined. Three consecutive commanders between 1751 and 1764 constantly strove to expand the company's territorial possesions on the coast resulting in a metamorphosis in the command's functioning. The components of the Fort Cochinsociety and the relations among the different communities that made up the social world of Fort Cochin receive attention in the book. Starting with the company men and analysing the recruitment pattern of the VOC in Malabar Command, one is faced with rather startling facts. The majority of the VOC personnel in the mercantile sections were locally recruited. European women were a rare sight in Fort Cochin. The European company men married mestizo women and through them became rooted in Cochin. Their sons joined the Dutch company thereby forming 'VOC-family'. While Dutch men were securing their future on the Malabar Coast, the EIC was expanding in India. During the 1780-1784 Anglo-Dutch war, many Dutch settlements were lost to the British. Fort Cochin evaded the fate as the EIC was yet to conquer Mysore, a formidable power in the south. When in 1795, the British forces conquered Fort Cochin, the servants of the Dutch company were forced to decide their future course of action. The social and economic condition of the people of Fort Cochin under the British administration has been analysed and lives of former VOC servants and their families after the transition has been portrayed Show less
This is a study of the colonial ‘civilizing process’ in Dutch Formosa (Present-day Taiwan) between 1624 and 1662. Drawing inspiration from Norbert Elias, this study stresses on ‘the colonial ... Show moreThis is a study of the colonial ‘civilizing process’ in Dutch Formosa (Present-day Taiwan) between 1624 and 1662. Drawing inspiration from Norbert Elias, this study stresses on ‘the colonial “civilizing process” ’ which is applied to the inexorable process of retreat from the era of ‘Aboriginal Taiwan’ under different schemes of ‘civilization’ brought by Western and Occidental colonizers since Taiwan’s early modern history. Contrary to the Dutch East India Company’s intention of carrying out a ‘colonial mission’, local Formosan inhabitants underwent their first profound colonial ‘civilizing process’. According to this study, this process moved in accordance with Dutch understanding of civilization embedded in the grid of State, capitalism, and Christianity. The focus of this thesis is to look at the Formosan agency in perception, participation, and practice in the Dutch-Formosan colonial encounters within the context of Chinese encroachment. The thesis introduces the scope and scene, documents the Dutch island-wide expansion in Formosa, analyses the phases of political empowerment, economic exploitation, and Christian missionary in Dutch Formosa, and re-asserts the changing image of Dutch rule for the Formosans which was revealed in the nineteenth century. Show less
This thesis investigates the structural changes in the agrarian society in Western parts of Sri Lanka as seen in the mid and late eighteenth century in the context of the encounter with the Dutch... Show moreThis thesis investigates the structural changes in the agrarian society in Western parts of Sri Lanka as seen in the mid and late eighteenth century in the context of the encounter with the Dutch United East India Company (VOC) administration. It attempts to understand the developments in the period from the vantage point of the peasantry, particularly by looking at the ways in which the peasants were affected by the Dutch colonial intervention and how they adjusted themselves to the changing economic and political reality. One of the characteristic features of the VOC rule was the higher degree of exploitation of peasant compared with the situation under pre-colonial rulers, because economic interests of the former was much higher than the latter. This situation brought about a break down of the structural equilibrium of the system of production and taxation. It is mainly within this context of structural break down that this study try to understand the long lasting changes in the social and economic setting. It discusses the changes in the production system with special reference to land utilization and labour organisation, changing aspects of the land tenure system, emergence of new class differentiations and new dynamics of caste formation. Show less
No European country enjoyed such long-standing relations with the Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya like the Netherlands. This dissertation is a study of the cross-cultural interactions between the Dutch... Show moreNo European country enjoyed such long-standing relations with the Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya like the Netherlands. This dissertation is a study of the cross-cultural interactions between the Dutch and the Thai in the 17th and 18th centuries. Based on Dutch sources, it investigates how the employees of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) perceived the court of Ayutthaya and its members in the context that it was most important for these men to maintain the balance between their ‘partnership’ with the Thai and their own ‘sense of differences’ from the Thai culture. The first part of the dissertation deals with the relatively equal positions of the VOC in relation to the Ayutthayan court in trade, politics, and diplomacy. In contrast, the fate of its men-on-the-spot and business in Ayutthaya was often subjected to local authorities. The second part shows how the VOC merchants evaluated the situation of different Thai Kings and how they dealt with the Thai elite. The analysis of the VOC sources shows how the positions of these Dutch merchants were dictated by local circumstances, thereby demonstrating the strength of early modern South-East Asia in the face of the rising of European power in the East. Show less
Against the background of a regional crisis caused by dynastic change in China and the closure of Japan in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Vietnamese kingdom of Tonkin rose to the fore... Show moreAgainst the background of a regional crisis caused by dynastic change in China and the closure of Japan in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Vietnamese kingdom of Tonkin rose to the fore as the major silk producing and exporting region in East Asia.Based on a wealth of so far unused primary sources from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives, this monograph explains how Dutch maritime traders played a critical role in Tonkin’s dramatic emergence as a trading power. The author examines the vicissitudes in political relations, the varying trends in the VOC-Tonkin import and export trade, and the Dutch influence on the seventeenth-century Vietnamese feudal society. Show less
Already in the 1590s the Portuguese in Asia looked upon the Dutch as a threat and most historiography has not been able to get away from the part that the Dutch played in the Indo-Portuguese drama.... Show moreAlready in the 1590s the Portuguese in Asia looked upon the Dutch as a threat and most historiography has not been able to get away from the part that the Dutch played in the Indo-Portuguese drama. The decline of the Portuguese-Asian empire was however the result of endogenous and extrageneous developments, in Asia as well as in Brazil, Africa and Europe. For an analysis of these developments a multi-linear approach has been chosen in the form of, what one could call, a revolving stage. Each scene, or rather each chapter, produces in the end a different answer to the same question. The first five chapters discuss the social and financial fundamentals of the Portuguese 'empire' overseas and the position of the Portuguese in Asia, in terms of population, trade and military power. Special emphasis has been laid on the relationship of the so called New Christian Portuguese with the Castilian crown and their particular role in the trade with India. It will be shown that, to them, satisfying the need for silver of the Habsburg monarchy became a more attractive proposition than investment in the Carreira da India. This and other developments in Asia undermined the position of the Estado da India and of the private Portuguese traders in Asia, before the Dutch became a serious threat to them. The next three chapters are concerned with the Dutch: it will be shown that their active role in the Iberian and the Luso-Atlantic trade did not exclude an aggressive mood in Asia, or vice-versa. Dutch aggression in Asia was in the first instance prompted and legalized by the States-General, but commercial considerations also caused the bewindhebbers of the VOC to adopt a bellicose way of thinking and writing. However, it will be shown that apart from some acts of piracy and privateering against Portuguese ships and attacks on the Portuguese forts on the Moluccan islands, Dutch violence was mainly directed against the Spanish in the Philippines and the Chinese trade with these islands. On the other hand, whereas the conquest of the Moluccan spice trade became a first priority, the VOC was unable to prevent the Spaniards from taking over many Portugue-se forts and even had to accept that the Portuguese spice merchants moved to Macassar, where for a long time they stayed out of reach of the Company. In the discussion of the Dutch commercial and military initiatives many of the paradigms around the rise of the Dutch empire in Asia will be punctured. In the first forty years of its existence the VOC was far from the effective business organization or war machine that many writers have made it to be. Many of the glorified feats of arms can only be described as defeats or a waste of manpower, ships and money. Finally, the ninth chapter concentrates on the Asian environment in which the Luso-Dutch confrontation took place. During the period under review, major shifts in the local political situation were caused by the southward expansion of the Moghul empire, the rise of the Nayaks of Ikkeri in Kanara, the expansion of Persia under Shah Abbas, the unification and state formation in Japan under the Tokugawas and finally, the Manchu conquest of China. As far as the Portuguese were concerned, all these developments, each in their own way, worked in the same, negative, direction. Show less
